One of Saskatchewan’s premier football rivalries will write a new chapter this weekend with a Prairie Football Conference championship on the line.
In a game which has been a year in the making for both the Saskatoon Hilltops and Regina Thunder.
“We know that they’re always going to bring it,” said Hilltops all-star defensive back Dalton Urban. “So we have to bring that mentality as well.”
The 9-0 Hilltops will host the 7-2 Thunder in the PFC final, after Saskatoon put together one of their best performances of the season in their opening game of playoffs.
Welcoming the Calgary Colts to town for a PFC semi-final tilt last Sunday, the Hilltops dominated play from start to finish to advance with a 53-2 victory.
“The whole point of the regular season is to build up into this point,” said Urban. “Week by week, we feel like we’ve gotten better and it’s important for us to show up in games like this.”
Named PFC Most Valuable Player and Offensive Player of the Year on Friday, running back Boston Davidsen had one of his signature games of the season against the Colts with 132 yards rushing and a pair of touchdowns.
He was joined by Charles Sawi also rushing for a big day on the ground, posting 127 yards and a touchdown himself.
Tom Sargent, who also took home conference Coach of the Year honours, said it was a monster performance which rolled over from the regular season.
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“You want to see what your team stands for,” said Sargeant. “What identity do they have? The regular season is one thing and playoffs it’s do or die. What I saw was a lot of confidence, a lot of poise and they executed the plan real well.”
With Regina advancing over the Edmonton Huskies by a 20-17 final, it sets up a rematch of the 2022 PFC championship game.
Saskatoon’s run of seven straight conference championships came to an end last October, as the Hilltops were upended 39-21 by an undefeated Thunder team which finished as runner-ups in the CJFL national championship.
That loss has stuck with the returning players from the 2022 Hilltops roster, including all-star receiver Drake Douglas.
“I think that left a bad taste in our mouth,” said Douglas. “We feel like this is what we expect and we’ve worked hard for this. We all know we kind of deserve it, but we just got to take it one game at a time.”
The message from Sargeant and the coaching staff has been clear this week, however, which throws out last year’s heartbreaking result in favour of wiping the slate clean and focusing on the task at hand.
“We don’t look back to the past,” said Sargeant. “It’s a totally different football team. When you have 23 guys who leave the building from last year and you start fresh, you weren’t sure where your starting point was.”
In their pair of games against Regina this season, Saskatoon has earned two victories including a tight 19-10 win in a rainy affair back on September 30.
Getting the chance to host a championship tilt is a prospect Urban and his teammates have been waiting for since training camp and said it’s a game they’ve been preparing for dating back to last fall.
“It has carried with us all off-season of just putting in that work and then getting it to this moment,” said Urban. “It’s just a week by week process for us, now we have that chance this weekend.”
The Hilltops and Thunder will battle for Prairie Football Conference supremacy at SMF Field in Saskatoon, with a 1:00 pm kickoff on Sunday.
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